Title: The controversy of the Swedish neuropsychiatric diagnosis DAMP.
A controversy study in scientific boundary work and translation between
different paradigms of knowledge.
Language: Swedish with an English summary
Keywords: controversy, boundary work, neuropsychiatry, science of theory
ISBN: 978-91-7346-724-7
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how medical professionals during the controversy
of the neuropsychiatric diagnosis DAMP, express their interpretation and jurisdiction claims
for knowledge and power in Swedish comprehensive school‟s pedagogical practice and theory
concerning pupil‟s learning disabilities and behavior problems. The controversy study is focused
to answer three specific questions:
How are medical professionals expressing their interpretation and jurisdiction claims for
knowledge in the controversy? How are medical professionals using the comprehensive
school as an arena in the struggle for the right to formulate a medical paradigm and to mai ntain
the power of jurisdiction? How are medical professionals defining knowledge of pedagogic
theory in relation to the paradigm of knowledge that describes neuropsychiatric diagnoses?
The study describes, analyze and discuss the specific images of the Swedish comprehensive
school that emerge through the examined medical perspectives from the two Swedish medical
journals, Läkartidningen and Dagens Medicin, during the different steps of the controversy.
The first stage of the analysis is carried out by the use of an analytic protocol, constructed by
Markle & Petersen (1981) with the specific purpose to examine the development and the dynamics
characterizing various interest groups involved in a controversy. The second stage of
the study focuses on the cognitive and social structures of the participants‟ contributions and
examines how arguments form category systems, reflecting different ontological and epist emological
representations related to the perspectives on individuals, on school and on society.
It is concluded that, compared to the discourse of the medical nomenclature, teachers and
other representatives of the school scene's possibilities to formulate a pedagogical problem in
a professional language are quite restricted. Inversely, psychiatrists and other representatives
of the medical scene claim the right to formulate a medical explanation including the necessary
pedagogical solutions to transform the diagnosis into pedagogical practices. Finally the results
indicate a practice of special needs education programs in the comprehensive school effected
by and oriented towards the neuropsychiatric paradigm.... more